The Utterly Sporkable Secret Baby Story

Hermione put the sleeping infant in the crib, and then sagged against the wall. Slowly, she fumbled her breast back into her bra, snapped it shut, and glanced at her daughter once more before she left the room.

Mine, she thought. My beautiful daughter.

She slipped from the nursery, and she had just pulled the door closed when a soft chiming sound warned her that someone was seeking entrance. She went to the front door and looked.

Snape.

She opened the door, and he pushed past her. "I'm here for my daughter," he said.

"I beg your pardon!"

"My daughter. You gave birth to a daughter, I know she's here."

"Yes, I have a daughter," said Hermione. "But she's not yours."

"She isn't?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"I can run paternity tests as well as the next potions mistress/Muggle chemist/forensics expert," she replied, her voice testy. "All of which I am."

"Oh," he said, seeming somehow crestfallen. Realizing it, he straightened, pushed back his lank, greasy hair with one hand and said, "I don't suppose you'd tell me whose it is, then?"

"Why would you care?"

"So I'd know who else you were shagging when you were supposedly so entranced with me."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. We had a single night's fling after Dumbledore's retirement bash, and in the morning you informed me that you completely regretted it. Besides, that was two years ago. Jane is five months old. Do the math."

He scuffed his feet on the carpet. "I don't suppose you'd need a babysitter now and then?"

"What are you talking about?"

"My biological clock!" Snape moaned. "It's ticking, and I'm afraid I've missed my chance at fatherhood!"

"Out," said Hermione. "You're a man, you don't have a biological clock."

"Does she at least look like me?"

"No. Her hair is brown, her eyes are green."

"Green eyes? Potter's child?!?"

"Harry Potter is hardly the only person on the planet with green eyes. It so happens my mother is green-eyed." Hermione opened the door pointedly. "Good-bye."

"But... a baby. A darling, precious adorable child," Snape keened, wrapping his arms around himself.

"That's it. Restraining order," Hermione snapped. "Out."

"But could I just see..."

"No. Out."

Snape hung his head and dragged himself out of the apartment. Hermione closed the door, the three Muggle locks and four Wizarding ones, and reset the wards. And cast a few new ones, while she was at it. She'd never seen Snape like that. Wait a minute...

She unwarded, unlocked, and threw open the door. "Ron WEASLEY! Get back here!"

"Snape" turned around. "I beg your pardon..."

"Can it, Ron. Only you would try a trick like this. Happy that you found out what you wanted? Yes, Snape and I had a one-night stand. It was stupid, it was pointless, it's over."

Ron/Snape shrugged. "Can't blame a bloke for trying. And since I got that," he continued, adopting a wheedling tone that was totally out of character for Snape, "now will you tell me who the father of the baby is?"

Hermione smiled sweetly. "Not you. Not Snape. Not Harry. That's as much as you get. And you'll be lucky if I ever speak to you again." The smile turned into a grimace. "Now. Get. Out!"

She went in her apartment, relocked the door, added several new wards this time, and tiptoed toward the nursery to peek on Jane. The baby was deep asleep; none of the hue and cry had disturbed her.

"Good," Hermione whispered, and then closed the door again. To the empty hall she said, softly, "You can come out now, Severus."

Severus Snape appeared as if out of the linen closet -- for that was where he'd been hiding. "Stupid, pointless and over?"

"I lie well, don't I?"

"He makes a very poor me," was Snape's only editorial comment. He added, gently, "You'll have to tell them sometime."

"Not until they stop fooling around. Will they ever grow up?"

"No. And who cares about them? You grew up quite nicely, and you're the only one who counts."

As she turned her face up to kiss him, all thoughts of the boys dissolved from her mind. "Who cares about them, indeed?" she murmured. "I'm tired, Severus. Let's go to bed."

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